Investigation of instruments measuring healthcare practitioners’ attitudes and beliefs toward low back pain : psychometric properties and survey of New Zealand osteopaths and manipulative physiotherapists
Date
2015Citation:
Rushworth, W. (2015). Investigation of instruments measuring healthcare practitioners’ attitudes and beliefs toward low back pain : psychometric properties and survey of New Zealand osteopaths and manipulative physiotherapists. An unpublished thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Osteopathy, Unitec Institute of Technology.Permanent link to Research Bank record:
https://hdl.handle.net/10652/3077Abstract
Background: The socioeconomic burden of low back pain highlights the need for effective management of this problem. Healthcare practitioner beliefs are thought to influence the advice and management given to patients with low back pain. The psychometric properties of instruments that measure practitioner beliefs have not previously been rigorously tested with manual therapists.
Objectives: To investigate internal consistency, test-retest reliability and construct validity of the FABT, the TSK-HC, the Back-PAQ and the HC-PAIRS. A secondary aim was to explore the beliefs of NZ osteopaths and manipulative physiotherapists about low back pain.
Method: An online and postal survey was administered twice, 14 days apart; the first generated the psychometric properties of the FABT, the TSK-HC, the Back-PAQ and the HC-PAIRS and gather descriptive characteristics of respondents. The second gathered test-retest information.
Results: Data from n=91 osteopaths and n=35 manipulative physiotherapists were analysed. The FABT, TSK-HC and Back-PAQ each demonstrated acceptable internal consistency, (Cronbach’s α=0.92, 0.91, and 0.91 respectively), and excellent test-retest reliability (lower limit of 95% CI for intraclass correlation coefficient >0.75). All instruments showed moderate correlation (Pearson’s r =0.51-0.78, p<0.001) suggesting good convergent validity. There was a medium to large effect (Cohen’s d >0.47) for the mean difference in scores, for all instruments, between professions.
Conclusions: This study established adequate internal consistency, test-retest reliability and construct validity for the FABT, the TSK-HC and the Back-PAQ. Previously reported internal consistency, test-retest and construct validity of the HC-PAIRS were confirmed, and test-retest reliability was excellent. Osteopathy and manipulative physiotherapy respondents in this study reported attitudes and beliefs that were moderately unhelpful to recovery from low back pain.